Loved comforting my children and now grandchildren: just the sound and vibrations of one's voice seemed to work. Made up the tune and the words as I went along with pretty mixed results.Seems to me a Lullaby is a very distinct form with constant repetition whose familiarity is part of the comforting effect. So just once I thought I'd try this form. Test I guess is can one 'hear' it sung.

More about the profound value of laughter and humour than just a single comic. Not my personal favourite comedian but one much-loved across class. Always broad, rarely smutty and never obscene. Eccentric personal life but deeply knowledgeable about humour. A closet intellectual it seems.

I wanted to post something to recognise at least the tragedy of Manchester. The new poem, as you have rightly shown isn't really up to it. This earlier poem seems more appropriate. It needs no further comment.

There is no category under reviews for this and anyway for reasons I hope will be clear from the piece this extraordinary artist uses her work to further her activism and struggle for justice for her First Nation people.

Been meaning to come back to this 'found' poem for a while. A few changes, mostly structuring the stanzas to try to embrace a philsophical idea. The thread that links these remarks is perhaps more philosophical than poetic but it now hangs together as much I will ever make it.

Haven't posted to the group for a while. Thought a letter to the press might suffice. It's a good discipline and you get a very professional judgement. I doubt this one will get through in the mass of Live 8 letters.

*Wittgenstein was asked: does God will the Good because it is Good; or is it Good because God wills it? He said the second was preferable because it prevents further analysis or argument. (Also Socrates' Euthyphro dilemma)

Wittgenstein said that words acquire their meaning from the use to which they are put and often the same word(s) can have very different meanings: he called these different uses, purposes of language 'Language Games' In turn these 'games' acquire their purpose and meaning from the shared 'Form of Life' in which they are ‘played’. As much a puzzle as a poem

I've always admired the 3 minute Pop song: they punctuate the sentences of our lives and mark the chapters. Written as a song: but it doesn't entirely conform to the song structure. It lacks a 'bridge' because I've never quite understood what a 'bridge' is.

I am working on a project that requires 1/2 extended essays on movie themes. This is one effort. It is intended for anyone with a serious but not professional interest in movies as an art form not just a consumable entertainment product.

Native American – Indian – spiritual beliefs unlike say the Abrahamic religions, are spatial not temporal; communitarian not individualistic. This does not try to be an ‘Indian’ poem – that would be silly. But it does try to express a deep empathy towards the spirit of these ideas and the culture that struggles in the face of ignorance and injustice to live by them and keep them alive. The recorded history of our, European, contact with these peoples is a lie; and its truth is shameful.

I really must lighten up. Meantime…one last polemic.
If you are infected with the disease of philosophy and find this stuff interesting, the book that best explores these ideas in depth is The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy-Peter Winch ISBN 0-415-05431-1 Old - but still in print.

Simone Weil died Ashford Kent August 1943. It is said her death was hastened by her refusal to eat more than her compatriots in occupied France. Our current culture calls her an anorexic. Her brother's thought in mathematics received a Nobel prize: hers, in almost every branch of thought, especially philosophy, did not. It is said that before he went to receive his Nobel prize for literature, Albert Camus, who knew and admired her, spent an hour deep in thought in Simone's flat in Paris.

By way of saying hi, I thought I'd post my entry to the BBC Endofstory competition which I am sure most of you will have heard of and some probably entered. I wrote 2: the Ed MacBain and the Joanne Harris half story - 'The Dryad'. As you could only submit one, I chose the Harris as it seemed the hardest to make work. My half is limited to 1,200 words.

It has been suggested this came out like a song. Hence posting it here. Folk singer Nanci Griffith sings in one of her songs about a first love killed in a motorcycle accident on his way to take her to a high school prom. 100 songs and 30 years later, endlessly touring, she still sings that song. The rest is speculation.

This is a 'found' poem. Striking ideas from Slavoj Zizek pschyoanalyst and philosopher subject of 'The Pervert's guide to cinema' (excellent film, silly title). A tour de force of intellectual passion and enthusiasm even if one doesn't accept the psychoanlaytic metaphysics. Zizec's ideas, my structure and organisation.